


Loss Ficlet: October 20, 2017

by missclairebelle



Series: Loss (Ficlets) [18]
Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-07 21:14:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14089803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missclairebelle/pseuds/missclairebelle
Summary: Jamie Fraser cooks, cleans, and cupcakes his way to Claire's dream birthday. (PWP)





	Loss Ficlet: October 20, 2017

**Author's Note:**

> Plot, what plot? This ficlet is not a tasteful fade to black with the door closed, lights off. I totally get it if this kind of thing is not your jam. This is a companion to Jamie’s birthday fic (May 1, 2017). Both came from a prompt sent to me on Tumblr. <3

**Loss (Modern AU)**

**October 20, 2017**

**_NSFW_ **

 

I opened the door to our flat just as Jamie dragged a match across the grit of a strike pad.  A solitary flame illuminated his face as he touched the match to the single candle in a cupcake that he was holding.  The odor of phosphorus from the match strike bloomed and dissolved in the air as I crossed the threshold.  

Jamie’s singing voice was soft, husky, and completely off-key: “ _Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Claire, happy birthday to you_.”

Our flat was dim, save a few solitary candles and the glow cast off by the candle in the cupcake.  With the golden halo of candlelight on his face, Jamie looked like the portrait of a saint.

 _Fuck_.  It was October 20th. It was my _birthday_.

I had thought Jamie seemed almost obsessively attentive to me that morning – chopping a banana into yogurt for me, and measuring spoonfuls of clover honey and milk into matching mugs of the tea that I loved but he hated.

“Make a wish,” he whispered, stepping forward and pushing the hair around my face behind my ears.  I felt a blush rising in my cheeks for absolutely no reason. I was not embarrassed – his proximity alone brought color to my cheeks.

Jamie smiled a lazy smile that touched every part of his face: the corners of his eyes wrinkling, his forehead creasing, his eyebrows raising. I kept my eyes open and blew out the candle. When I looked up, Jamie was staring at me through half-hooded eyes, the smoke from the candle curling on itself and disappearing around his face.

“Did they no’ teach ye in England that ye have to close yer eyes when ye blow out the candle? Yer wish willna come true.” He did not wait for an answer, instead asking, “Whatdya wish for, then?”

“Don’t they teach you in Scotland that if you share your wish it won’t come true?” I teased, unwinding the scarf around my neck and slipping out of my trench coat. I set my leather work bag on the floor, but immediately picked it up again when I realized how _clean_ our flat was.  

It was cleaner than it had been since the day we moved in.

“Here, let me take that,” he said, extending the cupcake to me and taking my coat and bag. I took the cupcake, looking around, stunned into a dumb silence.  My usually disastrous pile of mail and work papers that lived under our keys on the foyer table had been organized and stowed away. The hardwood floors were spotless and absolutely gleaming. The dishwasher was humming quietly under the soft, rolling guitar and husky voices coming from the television speakers. I unzipped my boots and put them on the small rack by the door – apparently tightened and no longer wobbling under the weight of our shoes. He had cleaned and _fixed_ things.

“Did you make this?” I asked quietly, nodding to the cupcake and still coming to grips with the fact that I was a year older and apparently had been none the wiser to it until I walked in the door.

“Hell no.” He hung my coat and bag in the front closet.

I was frozen in place.  Jamie took a step closer and tucked my hair behind my ears again, giving it a tug as if it would help keep it in place. The wind had whipped my hair all over on the walk home. “I’m sure I look like an absolute mess.”

“A _beautiful_ mess,” he said, as though he was correcting me.

He smiled and dropped his hand.

His voice was barely above a whisper when he said, “Hi, by the way.”

“Hi.” My response was tiny, breathy.  

I pulled the candle out of the cupcake and tasted the frosting on the end, shaking my hand and wincing when a tiny bead of hot wax dribbled onto my forefinger.  

Jamie touched me again, his fingers finding my earlobes. I felt my stomach shift when I remembered something he had said to me a few days earlier after he had made love to me: “ _Even yer earlobes, Claire. God, I love ‘em. They’re so… small… so soft._ ” It had been so _weird_ , but the amount of attention he’d dedicated to learning my body had stirred something inside of me.

“How was yer day?”

“It’s really good right now. You?”

“Mine was good, too.” He tilted his head to the side, his eyes on my mouth. My stomach clenched. “Did you have a nice birthday?”

_Was he just going to talk me to death?_

“Honestly, I didn’t even remember that it was my birthday until just now.” I could smell the cupcake ( _sweet, like berries and cream_ ) and him ( _clean and peppery, bourbon, cardamom and bergamot, like the cologne I bought him on a whim a few weeks earlier_ ).  “But, yes, I think it’s shaping up just fine.”

“The fact that you have no’ even tried to eat this in one bite surprises and disappoints me. I’ve been fightin’ the urge to eat it for the last two hours.”

I quirked an eyebrow and peeled the wrapper down.  

“I dinna even ken who ye are right now, Claire.”

I took a bite, making an exaggerated show of pleasure over at the first rush of the sugar-sweet vanilla bean cake and blackberry icing on my tongue.

Jamie grabbed my wrist and turned my hand so he could take his own bite. I almost screamed when he came at me, clearly with cake still in his mouth, and before I was finished chewing. Using my wrist for leverage, he maneuvered my arm out from between our bodies.

The kiss was disgusting and it made my stomach flip and twist in an absolutely delicious way.  

His mouth was aggressive and wet, warm and tasting like berries and cream.  I laughed against his lips and he laughed into the corner of my mouth. Our teeth bumped and his lips claimed mine, gritty with the coarse cake.

“STOP!” I squealed when he pulled back and started to twist my wrist back between our bodies and the cupcake towards my mouth. “THE FLOOR! It looks so nice!”

He released me almost immediately, raising an eyebrow and licking a smear of the icing from his hand. ****

“I confess that I dinna do much in the way of plannin’ an actual meal.  We can go out for a bit, if ye want, or I can cook.”

I wrinkled my nose at both options, not wanting to leave our beautiful flat and not wanting to spoil the utter bliss I felt in this moment ****

“ _Or_ we can just eat cupcakes and drink champagne in pajamas.  I bought four different flavors.  We could do a taste test.”

“I choose the last option,” I said immediately. I had been on my feet in an operating room for seven hours, been vomited on, rounded for hours, and attended a meeting that should have been an email.   _Oh, and he was intoxicating me_. It was a no-brainer.

“Go change. I’ll do the rest.” He bit the remainder of the cupcake out of the wrapper and took off to the kitchen.  

If the entryway of our flat gave me the impression that our home was spotless, stepping further proved it was _immaculate_.

The kitchen was absolutely sparkling.

The living room looked like a furniture showroom.

“How long did it take you to clean this place?” I asked, brow furrowed.

“Oh, not too long.”

“Liar,” I leveled with a smile, watching him extract more cupcakes from a pink paper box.  With a look of concentration, he set three cupcakes on a plate before cutting them in halves with an impressive, near-surgical precision.  

“Were ye no’ going to change clothes? Ye have many questions, I ken, but ye only have a few hours of birthday left, aye?”

I snorted and held my hands up in defeat before walking to our bedroom.

My heart stopped.

It looked like a hotel.  The bed was made beautifully, far nicer than the half-assed job we had done together earlier that morning ( _yanking the duvet up over mussed sheets_ ). Lit candles dotted the room and an enormous bouquet of wildflowers sat in a vase on my nightstand. I touched the blooms –hydrangeas, dahlias, mums all in deep tones of burgundy, pink, and eggplant, with white accents of Queen Anne’s lace.

When Jamie got it right, he really got it _right_.

I changed into different underwear and a strappy top. I wandered into the bathroom, dirty clothes in hand, on my tiptoes. I did not want to leave footprints in the soft white perfectly vacuumed rug under the bed.  Unsurprisingly, the bathroom was spotless and the hamper was empty when I dropped my dirty clothes inside.  I took a moment to wash my face and brush my teeth, excited over the promise of what the night held.  

When I came out of the bathroom, Jamie sprawled out on the bed next to a plate of cupcakes and a bottle of champagne with two glasses.

“It’s not the nicest of suppers, I’ll give ye that.”

I climbed on top of the duvet.  “It’s my official medical opinion that this is a fine, balanced diet for a birthday dinner. And besides, you’ve done a month’s worth of Saturdays in cleaning. _Thank you_.”

“Och, weel.” Jamie looked down, smiling slightly and apparently taking every pleasure in the praise. He shifted the conversation, picking up a piece of what looked like boring chocolate cake from the plate. “Try this one.”

“Are you sure you want to be eating on this perfectly made bed?”

“Dinna fash yerself with the laundry and c’mere before I tear inta this entire mess of sugar alone.”

I reached to take the chunk of cupcake from his hand and he shook his head.  I rolled my eyes, leaning forward and taking it with my mouth.  I sat back on the pile of pillows along our headboard and chewed thoughtfully. Suddenly my mouth was rushed with gooey salted caramel. I closed my eyes.

“Good, aye?”

I swallowed before opening my eyes and nodding, running my tongue around my mouth to get the last bits of gooey sweetness.

Jamie ate the second half of the cupcake in one bite and nodded, rising to his knees and leaning over me.  His lips were warm on mine and tasted of chocolate, caramel, and salt. I couldn’t stop myself from bringing my hands to rest on his neck when his tongue reintroduced the cupcake to my taste buds. Jamie pulled back from me, drawing my lower lip with his lips for only a moment.

From the grin on his face when he sat back it was clear that he had a dance well-choreographed for us tonight and I was in no way in the driver’s seat.

He was also apparently taking a substantial amount of pleasure from this.

Jamie passed me a glass of champagne, explaining, “I nicked this from the liquor closet at work.”  His advertising agency’s liquor closet was the stuff of legends in the Fraser/Beauchamp household – it frequently supplied an expensive whisky for a rainy Sunday indoors, French wine for dinners in, craft beers for parties with friends at our flat where Jamie served as the chef. Now, it also apparently provided champagne for my birthday. I doubted Jamie’s filching of the bottle was part of the closet’s intended purpose.

“It’s expensive. Like £350 a bottle.”

I took a small sip, letting it fizz on my tongue for a moment. The champagne was light and dry, almost beachy in flavor before the main note evolved into the fleshy, ripe juiciness of stone fruit and grapes, heavy and hot from the sun. ****

“Oh,” I mumbled, eyes wide, suddenly appreciating £350 champagne. “That’s perfect.”

“Good. I took three bottles of it.”

I almost choked on my second mouthful at the thought that we had over £1,000 worth of champagne in our home.

“Try this one.” Jamie held up another piece of cupcake. Not foolish enough this time to try to take it with my fingers, I took it with my mouth.  Jamie growled low in his throat when my tongue passed over the tips of his fingers. “This one is pumpkin. It’s October, so of course… _fuckin’ pumpkin everythin’_.”

I chewed contemplatively.

“So, how does it rate?” It was good, but not as good as the salted caramel.

“Mmmmm, third of three so far.”  

Jamie bit only a small corner off of his piece and put it back on the plate. “Ye have a fine palate, Sassenach. I agree, third of three.”

I leaned forward to kiss him again, raising my glass to avoid spilling on the bedding. Jamie shook his head, raising one hand and pushing me back by the shoulder.

“We dinna have time for that nonsense. This is serious, okay? We have one more cupcake.”

I grunted in response and returned to my pile of pillows.

 _Nonsense my English arse_.

Jamie downed the rest of his glass of champagne and shifted to his knees before moving to straddle me. His weight hovered just over my thighs.

“Mouth open, eyes closed.”

_And he had the nerve to talk to **me** of “nonsense.”_

I gave Jamie a skeptical look and he returned it in spades.

“I’m not going to put anythin’ weird in yer mouth.  Closing yer eyes’ll heighten yer sense of taste. Just listen to me, Sassenach.” ****

“What makes you think I’m going to just listen to you all night?”

“I mean to make ye call me master tonight.” I recognized Jamie’s purposeful, owl-like blinking and blank expression for what it was: a failed attempt to wink at me.

“I sincerely doubt that will happen,” I said, probably unconvincingly.  My eyes fluttered shut and my mouth opened anyway, waiting and wanting. It felt like he was going to make me wait a year. Jamie took his time and his fingers met my mouth first, smearing frosting over my lower lip before passing the cake between my lips.  

“Chocolate stout cake, whisky ganache, Irish cream frosting.”

I licked the buttery frosting from my lip and chewed thoughtfully, unable to stop smiling.  This one was delicious. It was less sweet to start and the chocolate was dark, almost bitter, and cut with a bite of whisky and rush of sugar.  

When Jamie’s lips met mine I was somehow ready even though my eyes were closed.  His tongue tasted like champagne and chocolate, sugar and the slightly boozy undertone of the cupcake.  I moaned into his mouth and he pulled back, having the gall to laugh at me.  His lips touched the very tip of my nose and I felt the radiant heat of his body disappear as he moved off of me. ****

“Can ye rank them?”

I heard his feet moving across the floor and I started to open my eyes.

“ _HEY_!” he exclaimed. “Close. Your. Eyes.” I obliged.

I thought for a moment before giving him my ranking: “The last one is best.  Then salted caramel.  Then the berry one.  Then pumpkin.”

“We’re so compatible; it’s crazy. Would ye believe that’s my ranking, too?”

“I’m surprised pumpkin even made your list, to be honest.”

He made a noise, low in his throat. I almost kicked him when I felt wet pressure on my right foot.  I opened my eyes.  He was sitting cross-legged the end of the bed, massaging my right foot with both of his hands, a closed jar of massage oil on the duvet.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I tried to pull my foot out of his grasp and he held tight.

“Am I really such a bad boyfriend that ye canna identify a foot massage when ye feel it?”  He was smiling and his voice was dripping with mock consternation. “Relax, birthday girl.”

“You really don’t have-” But my words cut out when his fingers dug into a knot that I did not even know was residing in the sole of my foot. The release of the tension made me melt backward against the pillows.

“There ye go,” he laughed, his thumbs working deeply. “Stay like that, eyes closed, relaxed.”

He hadn’t needed to tell me because they were already closed.  I shifted to give him a little slack and he pulled my foot closer towards his chest.

By the time he switched to my left foot I felt like I was floating in a sea of lemongrass massage oil, the candles lit around the room, and the rise and fall of guitar and piano. The lingering scent of the lemongrass oil melted with the soft jasmine of the candles.  I felt my pulse slowing to meet the soft rhythm of the music from the other room. ****

“Is this good?”

My brain had largely shut down and I could only answer with, “ _Mmmmm_.”

I was purely blissed out by the time he finished with the left foot, placing a small kiss on the sole and setting it back down on the bed. His hands started to work in long, even strokes up my shins and calves.  When Jamie moved to my thighs, a sigh escaped me that I had not known was building inside of me. By now I had shifted to lie fully on my back, feeling limp and languid.

“Ye can either sit up and take your top off, or I can do it.”

It took a moment to open my eyes and to refocus. I feebly lifted my arms above my head and he slipped the top off of me.  My eyes drifted shut again.

“Ye look so beautiful, Claire. Roll over onto your tummy.” With great effort, I managed.

Jamie straddled my hips and I was suddenly aware of the parts of my body that were _without_ that pressure. His hands ( _oil-slicked, broad_ ) ran up either side of my spine and over my shoulders, making me shudder. My skin cooled everywhere his hands were not.  He started his work on my lower back, just above the thin line of elastic at my hips. His thumbs rested on either side of the base of my spine, fingers slick with oil and gliding over my skin. His hands worked slowly up in the same circular motion, again and again, working over my shoulders on each pass.

My brain was shifting, melting. My body was weightless, my brain liquefied.

I needed to try to stay awake.

“Claire, really.  Are ye mumblin’ the names of muscles into the mattress?” he laughed. I had just whispered ‘ _triceps_.’

“Sorry. It feels so good; I don’t want to totally dissociate and fall asleep on you.”

“I dinna care what ye do, as long as ye feel good.”

I felt like an ice cream cone in his hand, melting in the summer sun. I had the sudden realization that ice cream must love to melt.

“God, yer ass,” he mumbled, his hands finding said part of my body. I sighed into the duvet, fabric rising into my mouth on my inhale.

Shifting slightly, his hands parted my legs and began to work over my inner thighs.  I felt his knuckles drag across my panties and heard the wet noise he made deep in his throat. He seemed to have no purpose in touching me other than to test what he was working with. I wanted to cry out, but my mouth was dry and filled with bedding.  

Jamie leaned forward until his chest was along the length of my back and he was pressing me into the mattress.  I could tell he wasn’t resting his whole weight on me. I felt cool air along my shoulders when he pushed my hair away and replaced it with his mouth.  He worked his way along the column of my neck slowly, his lips and tongue taking a meandering route. ****

“I’m going to roll ye onto yer back.” His whisper was warm on my throat and I felt his large hands deftly gripping my hips and turning me to face him before I could register what he had said. In an easy move, he was straddling me again and his oil-slicked hands started to work just around my belly button.  Moving north, he coated my stomach with oil and I arched against his hands without any conscious thought whatsoever.

 _He was grinning down at me, the bloody Scot_.

I was acutely aware of the heat pulsing and coiling in my belly, slipping lower and lower and filling me with a need for him.

Something told me that he knew, too.

Jamie’s warm, slick palms found my breasts and smoothed the oil over them.  My nipples peaked beneath the pressure of his touch, the oil dribbling in rivers over the slope of my breasts, onto my belly and towards my collarbone.

I reached for his belt buckle; I half expected him to stop me, but he didn’t. With fumbling, disembodied fingers, I undid his pants and eased all of the fabric covering him down over his hips and down to his knees. I touched his hands just long so my own fingers and palms were slick. I reached between us and ran my palm over the length of him, smiling when he sighed and stilled. It took him a moment before he reached behind his body to pull his shirt up and over his head. With a wet intake of breath, he moved his hands up my sides from hip to armpit and then over belly and back to breasts.

My hand touched his fifth rib, lingering on the small circular scar, feeling the texture of his skin change as my fingers moved over the width of his chest and then down the centerline of his torso. My hands felt heavy and slow like I was fighting to move through quicksand.

“Get these pants off,” I managed, returning my fingers to the waistband of his jeans and boxer briefs. He had them shucked to the end of the bed in near record time.  

I arched as he climbed back over me and went to slip out of my panties. Jamie caught my wrists, not breaking eye contact. With a single large hand, he pinned my wrists above my head.

“No. I’ve got the time and space to service ye properly,” he said, the evenness in his voice almost eerie. ****

“ _Oh my God_ ,” I groaned, his words making me bow up into him like a cat.  His lips found my neck, my collarbones, the curve of my jaw, my earlobes. His grip on my wrists only tightened when I arched into his belly on a sharp intake of breath.  He pushed my hands further into the mattress when he slipped his fingers into the front of my panties.

I felt a line of perspiration prick up on my skin along my arms, my shins, the arches of my feet. Jamie’s breathing was even, normal.  His fingers slowed their work and I sighed when he stopped completely, releasing my hands. My fingers immediately found his neck and I guided him to kiss me, which he did.

“I need you so much,” I mumbled when he pulled back.

“I know,” he responded simply.

I swallowed at his words – not arrogant, but sure and true.  It was a _fact_ to him – something he knew as sure as the sun rises in the east, sets in the west, this is Scotland: I needed him, he loved me, _I know_.

Jamie shifted my hips up and angled them slightly off of the bed. “Let’s get rid of these,” he said, his voice even but deeper than usual, his fingers hooked into my panties. He easily consigned them to the pile with his jeans.  

He almost undid me completely when he leaned forward and gave me a single warm kiss below my bellybutton. My stomach clenched and my fingers tangled in his hair.

Without any pretense, his mouth sealed over me. His tongue was warm, pulsing like a heartbeat, and as sure against my flesh as his words earlier: “ _I know_.”

When I started to turn away from the feeling, he guided my thigh up over his shoulder. I twisted slightly to my side. His mouth followed my lead. His hand looped around my thigh to still the weight of it on his cheek. Nothing existed other than this red-headed man between my legs, making love to me with his mouth for probably the thousandth time.

But it felt _new_. I was at once tingling, flushing, burning _._

“Jamie,” I whimpered. “ _Please_.”

I was torn between dissolving under his mouth until I disappeared and needing him inside of me, his eyes locked on mine. Ultimately, before my brain could make the decision, he made the decision ( _the right one_ ) and brought me over the edge with his fingers.

I was sweaty, ears clogged with the sound of my own heartbeat and breathing.  

My chest was full of my expanding, pounding heart.

My mind felt like it was watching the story of the entire world unfold from across the room.

When I finally opened my eyes, Jamie was sitting above me, his lower lip in his mouth and watching me.

I registered the feeling of his hand on my cheek. “Better than the pumpkin cupcake?” ****

My mouth released a sound kind of like _uhhuhyeah_ , but with more vowels and less structure. Jamie looked absolutely _proud_ , wiping his chin, and it made something flutter in my belly.

“Blink once for aye, blink two for ‘ _try again, James Fraser_.’”

My eyes drifted shut and stayed that way. He chuckled, a low rumbling noise in his belly and chest. When I finally opened my eyes again, his face was stoic and the humor was gone.

“I dinna ken what I did to deserve ye.”

I lifted one hand, heavy as lead, to his hip, my thumb on the perfect curve of muscle rising in an arch into his flat belly. My throat was dry, but my next words were laden with emotion: “I know that I must’ve done something pretty spectacular in a previous life.”

“Mmmm, aye, probably ye did. Maybe we both did.”

Jamie reached above me, his hands diving into the sheets and emerging with the oil. I watched him, eyes half-closed, as he uncapped the bottle with his teeth and filled his palm. My breathing quickened when he smeared it down his chest, over his belly, and the tops of his thighs. When he was done, he deposited the rest in a sloppy arc over my belly and thighs and breasts and arms.  

“I’ll get ye clean later,” he mumbled, throwing the empty bottle to the floor.  

His body was slick when he leaned forward, resting his hips on mine. I felt so deliciously warm like he had drenched my organs in honey.  I was heavy under his eyes, barely able to move other than to drag a single hand over his chest.  

The concentration on his face, the wrinkling at the corner of his eyes, the line of his pressed together lips made me feel like he was crawling under my skin.  

My hand returned to his neck, my fingers over his hammering pulse.  He lowered his mouth to mine as I lifted mine to his, and we met with slow tongues and lazy lips.

Jamie entered me and stilled before pulling out slowly. In the fog, I realized that his hand was on my cheek and I turned into it with my mouth.  It felt like he was touching me everywhere.

When he was finally sheathed inside of me, I found myself confessing how much I loved him, needed him, wanted him, and appreciated him.  His mouth parted and waited, accepting the words and then sealing them between us when his lips touched mine again.

He moved slowly, deliberately, deeply. 

Our bodies were slippery against one another, moving easily ( _together, against, back again_ ). Jamie made a home for his lips on my throat, his hair damp with sweat and warm against my jaw. His temple slipped up and over my cheek each time he pressed into me.

His body was persistent against mine and I felt my stomach climb into my throat. _Just right. I know_. I only vaguely registered his whispers into my skin; they were Gaelic and too soft, but I could tell that whatever it was, it was like a prayer. ****

I was melting with him.  My chest was a cage for my heart, huge and growing with every breath he took. It felt like it was about to explode. With every thrust I felt each sense slipping away, becoming pure sensation against his skin.

I was resigned to the fact that I would live forever only as a pulse inside of a vessel wrecked by him.

“ _Please_ ,” I mumbled, the word drawn into at least three syllables, all punctuated by at least a few moments. “More.”

Apparently knowing me better than I knew myself, Jamie took the vague invitation and hitched up my knee, changing his angle. It felt like the marrow inside of my bones was catching on fire.  I pressed my hand to his oil and sweat-slicked belly, the line of hair there bristly under my fingers.  His pace quickened only slightly.

Our bodies twisted into each other, the warm, silky rhythm he set pulling a sighing noise out of me sounded foreign to my own ears. My hips rose to meet his, needing him harder.  

I felt a pulsing churn, a heat and release threatening to break free inside of me. He fell forward slightly, hand moving from the headboard to rest next to my ear.

“I dinna have much left, Claire,” he confessed, his voice saturated in arousal.  

My finish did not hit me all at once.  It was slow, grinding and deep, intensifying as I reached up with my right hand to take his left wrist from by my ear.  I squeezed his wrist when I fell over the summit, my grip hard enough that I could feel the delicate bones shifting under his skin.

Jamie growled a response (“ _oh, fuck_ ”) before pushing into me one final time and stilling, falling forward so his weight was fully on me. We lay like that for a while, his weight crushing me and catching our breath.

I didn’t realize I was crying until I hiccupped against his shoulder.

He didn’t say anything. “ _I know_ ,” he had said.

I moved first, a hand tentative on his back, feeling his scars along his spine and then holding him over his shoulder. There, pressed against each other, we were both stripped bare down to our bones – our viscera exposed as we trembled against each other.

“Happy birthday, Sassenach.”

“Thank you… _master_ ,” I mumbled in response, grinding out the last word.

Jamie laughed. “I am yer master… and you, Claire Beauchamp, are mine.”

We held each other there until it was no longer my birthday.


End file.
